Crimson Batsmen Lose to Princeton As Three-Run Inning Decides Game

PRINCETON, N.J., May 4--Princeton's baseball team picked up three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning today, held on in the ninth, and pocketed a 7-5 come-from-behind victory over the Crimson, climaxing a very bad afternoon for the visiting Harvard teams.

It was a beautiful afternoon for baseball and the only distracting influences might have been the innumerable clubbies and their dates that covered the hill behind the diamond or the soothing Chuck Berry music that flowed incessantly across the campus from a nearby clubhouse.

It is difficult to point to any one factor that might account for the loss. Both teams played fine ball. There were five errors committed, but all but one of a total of 12 runs was unearned. And the pitching was just average on both sides. Both teams were hitting well--Harvard picked up 11 hits, Princeton 10. The Tigers' eighth inning just proved to be a little too much for the Crimson to make up.

With Harvard leading 5-4 in that eighth inning, Crimson hurler Dick Garibaldi retired the first man to face him, but then gave up his only two walks of the afternoon, putting the winning run on base. Princeton's captain Don Fudge, who had a double and two singles in previous trips to the plate, then lined a single to right, scoring one and tying the game. A strikeout followed, but Larry Schoenfeld, the Tigers' right fielder, hit one of Garibaldi's offerings to center field, driving the winning run and one insurance run across the plate.

No Big Crimson Inning

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The Crimson never did get a big inning going, scoring two runs in the second, and one each in the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings. Hits for the top of the order were scarce. Tom Bilodeau went two-for-four, but the other three of the first four hitters managed only one hit among them. Givin Gilmor picked up three singles in five trips to the plate, and Dick Diehl and George Sargent, batting seventh and eighth respectively, each went two-for-four. The failure of the usually big hitters to come through or even to get on base hindered the Crimson's offensive efforts considerably.